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THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD
Toward dawn two frightened messengers with monstrous
and unplaceable odours saturating their clothing knocked at
the Fenner door and requested a keg of rum, for which they
paid very well indeed. One of them told the family that the affair of Joseph Curwen was over, and that the events of the night
were not to be mentioned again. Arrogant as the order seemed,
the aspect of him who gave it took away all resentment and
lent it a fearsome authority; so that only these furtive letters of
Luke Fenner, which he urged his Connecticut relative to
destroy, remain to tell what was seen and heard. The noncompliance of that relative, whereby the letters were saved
after all, has alone kept the matter from a merciful oblivion.
Charles Ward had one detail to add as a result of a long canvass of Pawtuxet residents for ancestral traditions. Old Charles
Slocum of that village said that there was known to his grandfather a queer rumour concerning a charred, distorted body
found in the fi elds a week after the death of Joseph Curwen
was announced. What kept the talk alive was the notion that
this body, so far as could be seen in its burnt and twisted condition, was neither thoroughly human nor wholly allied to
any animal which Pawtuxet folk had ever seen or read about.
VI
Not one man who participated in that terrible raid could
ever be induced to say a word concerning it, and every fragment of the vague data which survives comes from those outside
the fi nal fi ghting party. There is something frightful in the care
61
HOWARD LOVECRAFT
with which these actual raiders destroyed each scrap which
bore the least allusion to the matter. Eight sailors had been
killed, but although their bodies were not produced their families were satisfi ed with the statement that a clash with customs
offi cers had occurred. The same statement also covered the numerous cases of wounds, all of which were extensively bandaged
and treated only by Dr. Jabez Bowen, who had accompanied
the party. Hardest to explain was the nameless odour clinging to all the raiders, a thing which was discussed for weeks. Of
the citizen leaders, Capt. Whipple and Moses Brown were most
severely hurt, and letters of their wives testify the bewilderment
which their reticence and close guarding of their bandages produced. Psychologically every participant was aged, sobered, and
shaken. It is fortunate that they were all strong men of action
and simple, orthodox religionists, for with more subtle introspectiveness and mental complexity they would have fared ill
indeed. President Manning was the most disturbed; but even
he outgrew the darkest shadow, and smothered memories in
prayers. Every man of those leaders had a stirring part to play in
later years, and it is perhaps fortunate that this is so. Little more
than a twelvemonth afterward Capt. Whipple led the mob who
burnt the revenue ship Gaspee, and in this bold act we may
trace one step in the blotting out of unwholesome images.
There was delivered to the widow of Joseph Curwen
a sealed leaden coffi n of curious design, obviously found
ready on the spot when needed, in which she was told her husband’s body lay. He had, it was explained, been killed in a customs battle about which it was not politic to give details. More
than this no tongue ever uttered of Joseph Curwen’s end, and
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THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD
Charles Ward had only a single hint wherewith to construct
a theory. This hint was the merest thread – a shaky underscoring of a passage in Jedediah Orne’s confi scated letter to Curwen, as partly copied in Ezra Weeden’s handwriting. The copy
was found in the possession of Smith’s descendants; and we
are left to decide whether Weeden gave it to his companion
after the end, as a mute clue to the abnormality which had occurred, or whether, as is more probable, Smith had it before,
and added the underscoring himself from what he had managed to extract from his friend by shrewd guessing and adroit
cross-questioning. The underlined passage is merely this:
I say to you againe, doe not call up Any that you can not put
downe; by the Which I meane, Any that can in Turne call up
Somewhat against you, whereby your Powerfullest Devices
may not be of use. Ask of the Lesser, lest the Greater shal not
wish to Answer, and shal commande more than you.
In the light of this passage, and refl ecting on what last
unmentionable allies a beaten man might try to summon in
his direst extremity, Charles Ward may well have wondered
whether any citizen of Providence killed Joseph Curwen.
The deliberate effacement of every memory of the dead man
from Providence life and annals was vastly aided by the infl uence of the raiding leaders. They had not at fi rst meant to be
so thorough, and had allowed the widow and her father and
child to remain in ignorance of the true conditions; but Capt.
Tillinghast was an astute man, and soon uncovered enough
rumours to whet his horror and cause him to demand that
the daughter and granddaughter change their name, burn
the library and all remaining papers, and chisel the inscrip-
63
HOWARD LOVECRAFT
tion from the slate slab above Joseph Curwen’s grave. He knew
Capt. Whipple well, and probably extracted more hints from
that bluff mariner and anyone else ever gained repecting
the end of the accursed sorcerer.
From that time on the obliteration of Curwen’s memory
became increasingly rigid, extending at last by common consent even to the town records and fi les of the Gazette. It can
be compared in spirit only to the hush that lay on Oscar Wilde’s name for a decade after his disgrace, and in extent only to
the fate of that sinful King of Runazar in Lord Dunsany’s tale,
whom the Gods decided must not only cease to be, but must
cease ever to have been.
Mrs. Tillinghast, as the widow became known after 1772,
sold the house in Olney Court and resided with her father in
Power’s Lane till her death in 1817. The farm at Pawtuxet,
shunned by every living soul, remained to moulder through
the years; and seemed to decay with unaccountable rapidity.
By 1780 only the stone and brickwork were standing, and by
1800 even these had fallen to shapeless heaps. None ventured to pierce the tangled shrubbery on the river-bank behind which the hillside door may have lain, nor did any try to
frame a defi nite image of the scenes amidst which Joseph Curwen departed from the horrors he had wrought.
Only robust old Capt. Whipple was heard by alert listeners to mutter once in a while to himself, “Pox on that — but he
had no business to laugh while he screamed. ’Twas as though
the damn’d — had some’at up his sleeve. For half a crown I’d
burn his — home.
A SEARCH AND
AN EVOCATION
I
Charles Ward, as we have seen, fi rst learned in 1918 of
his descent from Joseph Curwen. That he at once took an intense interest in everything pertaining to the bygone mystery
is not to be wondered at; for every vague rumour that he had
heard of Curwen now became something vital to himself, in
whom fl owed Curwen’s blood. No spirited and imaginative
genealogist could have done otherwise than begin forthwith
an avid and systematic collection of Curwen data.
In his fi rst delvings there was not the slightest attempt at
secrecy; so that even Dr. Lyman hesitates to date the youth’s
madness from any period before the close of 1919. He talked
freely with his family – though his mother was not particularly pleased to own an ancestor like Curwen – and with the offi cials of the various museums and libraries he visited. In applying to private families for records thought to be in their
possession he made no concealment of his object, and shared
the somewhat amused scepticism with which the accounts of
the old diarists and letter-writers were regarded. He often expressed a keen wonder as to what really had taken place a cen-
65
HOWARD LOVECRAFT
tury and a half before at the Pawtuxet farmhouse whose site he
vainly tried to fi nd, and what Joseph Curwen really had been.
When he came across the Smith diary and archives and encountered the letter from Jedediah Orne he decided to visit
Salem and look up Curwen’s early activities and connexions
there, which he did during the Easter vacation of 1919. At
the Essex Institute, which was well known to him from former
sojourns in the glamorous old town of crumbling Puritan gables and clustered gambrel roofs, he was very kindly received,
and unearthed there a considerable amount of Curwen data.
He found that his ancestor was born in Salem–Village, now
Danvers, seven miles from town, on the eighteenth of February (O.S.) 1662–3; and that he had run away to sea at the age of
fi fteen, not appearing again for nine years, when he returned
with the speech, dress, and manners of a native Englishman
and settled in Salem proper. At that time he had little to do
with his family, but spent most of his hours with the curious
books he had brought from Europe, and the strange chemicals
which came for him on ships from England, France, and Holland. Certain trips of his into the country were the objects of
much local inquisitiveness, and were whisperingly associated
with vague rumours of fi res on the hills at night.
Curwen’s only close friends had been one Edward Hutchinson of Salem–Village and one Simon Orne of Salem. With these
men he was often seen in conference about the Common, and
visits among them were by no means infrequent. Hutchinson
had a house well out toward the woods, and it was not altogether liked by sensitive people because of the sounds heard
there at night. He was said to entertain strange visitors, and
66
THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD
the lights seen from his windows were not always of the same
colour. The knowledge he displayed concerning long-dead
persons and long-forgotten events was considered distinctly
unwholesome, and he disappeared about the time the witchcraft panic began, never to be heard from again. At that time
Joseph Curwen also departed, but his settlement in Providence was soon learned of. Simon Orne lived in Salem until
1720, when his failure to grow visibly old began to excite attention. He thereafter disappeared, though thirty years later
his precise counterpart and self-styled son turned up to claim
his property. The claim was allowed on the strength of documents in Simon Orne’s known hand, and Jedediah Orne continued to dwell in Salem till 1771, when certain letters from
Providence citizens to the Rev. Thomas Barnard and others
brought about his quiet removal to parts unknown.
Certain documents by and about all of the strange characters were available at the Essex Institute, the Court House,
and the Registry of Deeds, and included both harmless commonplaces such as land titles and bills of sale, and furtive fragments of a more provocative nature. There were four or fi ve
unmistakable allusions to them on the witchcraft trial records;
as when one Hepzibah Lawson swore on July 10, 1692, at
the Court of Oyer and Terminer under Judge Hathorne, that:
“fortie Witches and the Blacke Man were wont to meete in
the Woodes behind Mr. Hutchinson’s house”, and one Amity
How declared at a session of August 8th before Judge Gedney
that: “Mr. G. B. (Rev. George Burroughs) on that Nighte putt
ye Divell his Marke upon Bridget S., Jonathan A., Simon O.,
67
HOWARD LOVECRAFT
Deliverance W., Joseph C., Susan P., Mehitable C., and Deborah B.”
Then there was a catalogue of Hutchinson’s uncanny library as found after his disappearance, and an unfi nished
manuscript in his handwriting, couched in a cipher none
could read. Ward had a photostatic copy of this manuscript
made, and began to work casually on the cipher as soon as
it was delivered to him. After the following August his labours on the cipher became intense and feverish, and there
is reason to believe from his speech and conduct that he hit
upon the key before October or November. He never stated,
though, whether or not he had succeeded.
But of greatest immediate interest was the Orne material.
It took Ward only a short time to prove from identity of penmanship a thing he had already considered established from
the text of the letter to Curwen; namely, that Simon Orne and
his supposed son were one and the same person. As Orne had
said to his correspondent, it was hardly safe to live too long in
Salem, hence he resorted to a thirty-year sojourn abroad, and
did not return to claim his lands except as a representative of
a new generation. Orne had apparently been careful to destroy most of his correspondence, but the citizens who took
action in 1771 found and preserved a few letters and papers
which excited their wonder. There were cryptic formulae and
diagrams in his and other hands which Ward now either copied with care or had photographed, and one extremely mysterious letter in a chirography that the searcher recognised from
items in the Registry of Deeds as positively Joseph Curwen’s.
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THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD
This Curwen letter, though undated as to the year, was
evidently not the one in answer to which Orne had written
the confi scated missive; and from internal evidence Ward
placed it not much later than 1750. It may not be amiss to give
the text in full, as a sample of the style of one whose history
was so dark and terrible. The recipient is addressed as “Simon”,
but a line (whether drawn by Curwen or Orne Ward could
not tell) is run through the word.
Providence, 1. May
Brother: –
My honour’d Antient Friende, due Respects and earnest
Wishes to Him whom we serue for yr eternall Power. I am
just come upon That which you ought to knowe, concern’g
the Matter of the Laste Extremitie and what to doe regard’g
yt. I am not dispos’d to followe you in go’g Away on acct. of
my Yeares, for Prouidence hath not ye Sharpeness of ye Bay in
hunt’g oute uncommon Things and bringinge to Tryall. I am
ty’d up in Shippes and Goodes, and cou’d not doe as you did, besides the Whiche my Farme at Patuxet hath under it What you
Knowe, and wou’d not waite for my com’g Backe as an Other.
But I am unreadie for harde Fortunes, as I haue tolde you,
and haue longe work’d upon ye Way of get’g Backe after ye
Laste. I laste Night strucke on ye Wordes that bringe up YOGGE-SOTHOTHE, and sawe for ye fi rst Time that Face spoke of
by Ibn Schacabao in ye — . And IT said, that ye III Psalme in ye
Liber–Damnatus holdes ye Clauicle. With Sunne in V House,
Saturne in Trine, drawe ye Pentagram of Fire, and saye ye
ninth Uerse thrice. This Uerse repeate eache Roodemas and
Hallow’s Eue; and ye Thing will breede in ye Outside Spheres.
69
HOWARD LOVECRAFT
And of ye Seede of Olde shal One be borne who shal looke
Backe, tho’ know’g not what he seekes.
Yett will this auaile Nothing if there be no Heir, and if
the Saltes, or the Way to make the Saltes, bee not Readie for his
Hande; and here I will owne, I haue not taken needed Stepps
nor founde Much. Ye Process is plaguy harde to come neare;
and it used up such a Store of Specimens, I am harde putte to
it to get Enough, notwithstand’g the Sailors I haue from ye Indies. Ye People aboute are become curious, but I can stande
them off. Ye Gentry are worse that the Populace, be’g more
Circumstantiall in their Accts. and more belieu’d in what they
tell. That Parson and Mr. Merritt haue talk’d Some, I am fearfull, but no Thing soe far is Dangerous. Ye Chymical Substances are easie of get’g, there be’g II. goode Chymists in Towne, Dr.
Bowen and Sam: Carew. I am foll’g oute what Borellus saith,
and haue Helpe in Abdool Al–Hazred his VII. Booke. Whateuer I gette, you shal haue. And in ye meane while, do not neglect to make use of ye Wordes I haue here giuen. I haue them
Righte, but if you Desire to see HIM, imploy the Writings on
ye Piece of — that I am putt’g in this Packet. Saye ye Uerses
euery Roodmas and Hallow’s Eue; and if ye Line runn out not,
one shal bee in yeares to come that shal looke backe and use
what Saltes or Stuff for Saltes you shal leaue him. Job XIV. XIV.
I rejoice you are again at Salem, and hope I may see you
not longe hence. I haue a goode Stallion, and am think’g of
get’g a Coach, there be’g one (Mr. Merritt’s) in Prouidence already, tho’ ye Roades are bad. If you are dispos’d to Trauel, doe
not pass me bye. From Boston take ye Post Rd. thro’ Dedham,
Wrentham, and Attleborough, goode Tauerns be’g at all these
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